DES: No contaminants found in residential wells near former Collins and Aikman site in Farmington

Thursday

Nov 15, 2012 at 3:15 AM

By Samantha Allensallen@fosters.com

FARMINGTON — The state Department of Environmental Services reports after a review of residents’ water wells in the area of the former Collins and Aikman site off Davidson Drive, no contaminants have been found. The site has been approved to be added to the Superfund list by the Board of Selectmen and the state will approach the new governor for a letter of approval in early January.

Selectmen have been discussing the Superfund designation process since June and have been working with the state DES and the federal Environmental Protection Agency on scheduling cleanup of the site at 52 Davidson Drive for April 2013. The former property, operated by Collins and Aikman, housed automotive plant operations decades ago. The N.H. Custodial Trust is now charged with maintenance of the property, but DES was brought in for support when they revealed there did not have enough funds to properly care for it.

At an Aug. 13 meeting, selectmen officially approved sending a resolution to soon-to-be governor Maggie Hassan, requesting the property be deemed a Superfund site and placed on the National Priorities List.

E. Molly Stark of the DES Hazardous Waste Remediation Bureau said Gov.-elect Hassan will be contacted in early January 2013, after she settles into her new office.

Stark predicted around that time, the trust may reach a sales agreement with George Sacco, a metal recycler from Massachusetts who approached the town Planning Board recently to discuss expanding his business to Farmington. In purchasing a 10-acre subdivided lot from the approximate 100-acre Collins and Aikman site, Sacco said he would agree to lease existing maintenance equipment to the Custodial Trust for continual upkeep for the property.

According to DES, contamination extends from the former Collins and Aikman plant site and under Route 11, to properties across the road which are currently undeveloped. The contamination, known as “chlorinated solvents,” has gone below the surface, deep into the earth’s bedrock, and led to a town aquifer being shut down years ago.

Stark said since meeting with town residents over the summer at a public hearing to discuss the matter further, she personally agreed to knock on locals’ doors and test their water wells for any existing contamination. Now she says her testing process is complete and she is confident there is no contamination in the nearby water supply, noting the plume hasn’t grown since the 1960s.

“The dissolved concentrations migrate down with the groundwater direction so it’s sort of like … a conveyor belt that picks up material from a source and it downgrades a certain amount so you don’t detect it anymore,” she explained. “With so many gallons of groundwater, it’s diluted away. When you look at the size of the plume, the conveyor belt, that hasn’t increased over time, but we wanted to be sure. We just wanted to be careful and be sure and from what I saw, there’s nothing to be concerned about in terms of residential wells.”

According to the DES website, the Superfund program serves to address contamination at sites where hazardous substances were abandoned, accidentally spilled, or illegally dumped, and pose current or future threats to human health or the environment. In New Hampshire, the Superfund program is currently involved in the cleanup of 20 sites where the DES provides technical guidance and regulatory oversight to the process, with an additional one in process.